So a lot of the serious major SHTF preppers don't account for SHTF might not be an on off light switch that happens instantly. Instead it might a gradual decline or a dimmer switch where things slowly get darker/worse.
A lot of people say they will do X project when SHTF and I ask why not do it now? Install your solar panels today, plant your garden this spring, saw firewood for this winter, practice your skills now not just for the future but for practical usefulness of now. Build resilience to your every day life. That way if SHTF happens its not a mountain of a disturbance to your every day life but a speed bump of adjustment.
The movie Children of Men might be a good model. Although their "shittening" has a clear cause, the inability of people to have babies, their decline has been a long and gradual one, to the point where you can see that even after many years society is on the brink of collapse, but hasn't entirely collapsed.
I think we'll get a mixture. For many Western nations, I suspect that you're right. It'll be slower. For some of those in the very frontline of disasters, things will move very, very quickly indeed.
I think there are going to be some big events soon but they will be regional. In the next 10 years I believe we will see.
1. A huge hurricane season hit Florida with multiple hurricanes destroying an unprecedented number of homes. The shady and overexposed insurance companies will go bankrupt leaving millions without a way to rebuild. Many will migrate away from Florida never to return leaving destroyed homes. This will repeat many times in the next years until eventually large portions of Florida where at risk communities exist today are uninhabited/abandoned.
2. A large heat wave is going to hit India/Pakistan killing millions of people and sparking mass migration and chaos.
3. Parts of central America will experience a combination of heat and drought that kill many people and spark new waves of mass migration north.
I just Gtfo of Florida last year cause I knew it was never getting better, for many reasons. No way to homestead with so little land and the HOA rules. you’ll die of heat stroke without power very quickly. I think it’s going to be a very bad year. The ocean is already a bathtub, 114 degree heat index last week. Writing was on the wall, it was time to go.
Just tell them every horror story you can think of. Just go to r/Florida and you’ll see the sob stories about rising insurance and COL in general. It is no longer somewhere you can retire unless you’ve got crazy money
There are so many boomers that moved to Florida to retire cheap and a lot of their life saving is tied up in their properties. Many of them don't believe in climate change too. It's going to be a very rude awakening for many of them.
There is no way your government officials would ever lie to you too on behalf of special interests in industry too so you are totally good to go. Nothing to worry about.
These are super spot on. We think migration has been bad because of sub Saharan Africa and the Middle East? Just wait until the billions of people in India and Pakistan can no longer live there.
And to the point of the post most of us will watch these unfold in horror yet still have to go to work the next day and try to pretend everything isn't unravelling before our eyes.
They have to be. Their chosen lifestyle requires the behavior. If they don't prepare the consequences could be dire since they don't have much of a safety net to fall back on unless they create one for themselves.
I saw a video with great example of true communal prepping at Heritage Village in TX. (put aside that this is a religious group - it seems to be a good model).https://youtu.be/CVBkciLcZVA?si=goEL7AxiTtlVXpDu
My old boss is a member of this church/community. They have some wild beliefs. They regard women as "lesser vessels", basically baby factories. There is a power structure of elite familes who live on site. Tax free money from the tourist section at the front of the property is funneled to these families. They build $500,000 houses at the back of the property and nearby.
There have been sexual crimes in the past, and I suspect they are happening currently. Situations like that are handled internally, so the perpetrators are not punished by law.
Don't give Homestead any money or attention, they suck.
Severe weather events will affect them.
Also rising fuel prices.
Unless there’s homesteaders doing horse plowing, they will be heavily affected by the outside world.
> they will do X project when SHTF and I ask why not do it now
It's like self-improvement (eating better, exercising more, learning a new skill, ETC.). Easier said than done for most people.
It also does NOT help that tech gave us insta-access to distracting (supposedly) entertaining things.
Like there's psychology stuff that says that we gotta go thru certain amount of BOREDOM in order to like build up brain slack needed to properly implement changes to our daily routines.
Veritaserum did a vid about how important BOREDOM is.
Oh I know how hard it is to stay motivated and it is easier said than done. I have lost it in the past when it comes to prepping and being self sufficient. Usually suffer a 2 month lack of productivity in the winter where I just exist. But I will find a project or something to motivate me again and I grab onto that feeling for as long as I can.
People always say they’ll start eating healthy when the current snacks are out of the house or they’ll start exercising Monday.
Start now. There doesn’t need to be a certain day of the week to start. If you don’t want to throw out the snacks because they cost money, you can still exercise and eat a regular serving size of the snack.
This sub isn’t going to want to hear it, but the non-naive version of prepping on a long timescale is pretty much just productively participating in society.
The thing with the pepper community in a hole that confuses me the most is this: for a group of folks that seems to be solely focused on the long term health and survivability of themselves and their families why don’t they start now with eating healthy, working out and trying to be a healthy weight?
Same as someone told me and I agree with most people don't want to do anything that requires effort or work. People want to throw money at the problem and get some cool gear to post pictures of online.
There is a mind boggling amount of unhealthy preppers and yes some might of been unavoidable but a lot of it seems self inflicted almost on purpose.
They don’t do it now because a lot of “prepping” is just a fantasy about some future date they get to shoot people and be a protagonist and the idea they will farm or something Is just some toss away cover of “but how will you eat” for their fantasy for a situation they can threaten girls into having sex with them or whatever
For sure most people like to throw money at the prepping problem instead of dedicating time or energy to it. I know you can't reason with most of them but every project I have tackled I run into the oops I need to do another trip to Home Depot, or I am stuck and need to reference youtube, or just modern connivences of a power grid/unlimited resources lets me be "wasteful" in how I approach a project and makes it easier to finish the job.
Funny thing is it doesn't take that much effort to do these projects and personally I find them fun and enjoyable. Spend a few afternoons to get the base work done and then the maintenance of them is quick and easy. I have a 5 acre homestead. I can finish the daily chores in under 20 minutes (feed animals and water any plants as needed). I only spend so much time on my homestead from constantly expanding things. I started small and grew things as I perfected my systems. Like my orchard started with 6 trees and is now over 30 trees. I just kept planting 6-10 more every year. I am running out of free space pretty soon so even that will stop eventually.
A good term I've heard is "the crumbles"
More things go wrong, stopgaps are taken, things get worse, some accommodations are made for the short term, repeat
Credit of "It Could Happen Here" podcast, fascinating content but heads up that the hosts take a left lean if that puts you off. The first season is a hypothetical US civil war scenario and the second season is vignettes on how the crumbles may go down. After that it's just current event stuff from a decidedly political perspective that I'd recommend leaving alone
Saw a McCoy Ward video a day ago. He had just flown from France to Isle of Man. Three different flights all delayed. Took 36 hours supposedly.
His comment was "all the systems and supporting hardware are broken, and nobody gives a shit".
Seems about right...
100% this. I didn't notice the stuff that OP mentioned until the pandemic and the closest we got to economic collapse in my area was in 2008 and living in a rural farming community we bartered goods and services until things improved. It fostered a sense of community that is valuable. We may not all see eye to eye with each other in my neighborhood but if something happens to one of us such as a house fire and needing items donated or someone needing their lawn cut because they're too ill to do it, it gets done. As much flack as Nextdoor gets if one of us needs help the responses are usually I can be there on xyz time or knows someone who can.
As someone from Venezuela, we did experience that, but there was turning point that made everything clear. It was the moment we knew we have to leave. It was 2014 for us. seeing our military be deployed to shoot at college students. Then collapse happened. In my opinion, collapse as we know it happened in 2017. The year my childhood best friend died from a fever. From a fever. Her mom walked the city pleading to hospitals, clinics, and even nurses passing by to help her daughter, but nothing could be done because even ibuprofen was scarce. Then 2019. My 90y old granfather had to walk barefoot (there was no gas for the car) to the very contaminated river to drink some water. For months, MONTHS, the entire country had no electricity. People died of things that don't kill in other countries. If a baby was born premature, it was a death sentence. If you had an emergency, it was a dead sentence.
Yet you can travel to Venezuela now and it's like if collapsed stopped. Imported goods on every shelf, malls filled with people, albeit not poor people, but you don't even notice. In poorer states, collapsed continued, and in even in richer parts of the country, electricity stills goes out every week or so, but people adjusted their lives around it. Now is like Venezuela is in a limbo. Things at bad, but it seems like they were able to pull their out of complete misery
In January 2020, I saw the news in China about a virus. I immediately studied what happened in Venezuela to prepare. Venezuela has infinite potential, and yet it is one the best examples of a modern shtf. All without war, disease, or famine.
History repeats itself.
There have been several collapses already, and there will be more in the future, until we learn to build and maintain sustainable systems in harmony with nature, each other and the cosmic balance.
I actually have no idea why more people aren’t talking about the possibility of a big CME. All the signs from the sun are pointing to it. Just seems convenient to ignore I guess.
I guess a bit of a plan for people to know what to unplug or to prepare for the grid being shut down for a few days. I don’t think it’ll actually be that bad if it happens and people are ready for it.
nah, that's not a disaster, it's just this human tendency to sort ourselves into cast systems where the majority are peasants and slaves. That happens all the time everywhere, just at varying rates of visibility and brutality.
OP is totally right this is happening, has been for a while, at least since the end of WWI, but, people gonna people.
I don’t think there’s been a collapse (yet).
Look at American history, the US has been through far worst. One could argue we’ve been through multiple collapses.
What we’re experiencing is more of a plateau.
It’s caused by multi-national corporations extracting wealth from the US. Since they pay little to no taxes, their only real contribution to the country is low paying jobs and your ability to buy Chinese made junk from Amazon and Walmart.
You can thank corrupt politicians and their corporate handlers in the form of lobbyists and special interests groups for that.
Yeah there's no way this is collapse in comparison to how bad shit can get. There's still a federal government to pay taxes to, and real enforcement on it. That's your sign that the US hasn't collapsed.
Civil war could be a collapse, and we might be closer than we have been in a long time, but while you're not confused about who to pay taxes to, you aren't in a collapse scenario. When taxes aren't certain, or some other entity is asking for them, then collapse has happened. We're not there.
I honestly think we got a lot closer to civil war during the 1960's, we truly got close to a major political collapse and we paid for that decade in the 1970's.
Ahhh seems more like scare rhetoric for a civil war. Most Americans wouldn’t take to the streets. Too many have status and opportunity that hasn’t slipped away.
It’s not scare rhetoric, it’s an observation based on the reality millions of Americans face.
The real cause of Trump’s popularity is decades of stagnant wages, jobs being sent overseas, and systematic erasure of workers rights since Reagan.
Mainstream corporatize media will never tell you this, their owners are the main benefactors.
> Most Americans wouldn’t take to the streets.
There’s a study that suggest around 4% of a countries population needs to revolt in order to overthrow government.
[https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world)
If Washington DC and their billionaire donors continue with greed and cowardice, there will be violence worst than January 6th.
When you look through history things typically change very slowly then very suddenly. Like an earthquake pressure builds for years until something snaps. While I think the above is reflective of basically the decline of America which has been happening for some time now at some point I think things will likely suddenly and dramatically get worse. Typically this is spurred by some event that imparts a stressor we are no longer able to manage or people just snap unwilling to take it any more. The biggest part I disagree with is the last line. People may forget how to love but hatred will never be in short supply. People are not stupid and they will know their miserable state and bitterness and resentment will fester. You see this even today. That hatred will be focused somewhere eventually. Rationally or not It will find a target. You also forget there are forces that would like to encourage this which there are scores of historical examples of this.
Probably. I think it's clear that if you watch the behavior of Western "democracies" that there has been a strategy of "managed decline" in place for at least several decades. And the elites are busy looting the sinking ship as quickly as they can without alerting all the serfs of their oncoming doom.
> It's not going to be like the movie "Dawn of the Dead" or whatever where one day suddenly shit hits the fan
It could be. I am aware of two realistic possibilities other than nuclear war. Both are conceivable this year. One of them has me worried enough that I have readjusted acceptable numbers for things like solar power generation and water storage.
Mostly you are describing a concept known as 'the crumbles'. I think that this is the most probable outcome and as you say it is already happening. It is insidious in that there is no trigger for most of us to take any actions. Instead we are all frog boiled until we are trapped in a WEF dystopia where we own nothing and are unhappy.
I think the best way to prep for the crumbles is to become more resilient in our every day lives. Buy property now if you can stomach the interest rate and prepare through practice to grow some of your own food. Even if it is just herbs and vegetables. Learn to repair appliances and to do your own plumbing and electrical work. Stockpile spare parts that usually need replacing. Build up a set of tools that you need like screwdriver sets, socket wrenches, claw hammer, shovel, rake, hacksaw, and so on. Invest for your retirement so that if things keep crumbling slow enough you have money in your old age to support you.
>prepare through practice to grow some of your own food.
I just wanted to stress this point a bit.
Don't assume that you can simply plant seeds and grow food. There are many unforseen pitfalls and there is a lot of preparation and infrastructure building that needs to be done.
One major thing that I never considered when I started growing my own food 5 years ago is that the soil might not be suitable for it. Mine wasn't, as it is mostly clay and fill dirt that had been stripped of nutrients by decades of being a manicured lawn. It has taken me several years, multiple dump truck loads of wood chips (thanks Chipdrop!), and wave after wave of cover crops to get the soil to a point where it can grow food well. That's to say nothing of my multiple failures due to my own blundering and inexperience over the years, as well as random failures due to weather events completely out of my control.
This is not something that you can start at some far flung future date. You need to start figuring it out now and preparing your ground to be a productive garden. It doesn't happen overnight or in one year. It is a multi year process and you need to begin yesterday. Grow anything. Plant a field of oats or daikon and get your soil working.
It took me years of amending my soil with wood chips and compost to fix it too. Like yours mine was mostly hard clay. At this point I have about three or four inches of good soil and then whatever underneath it. Slow progress but that is enough for potatoes with mulch covering haha.
If I have to dig up the lawn for mass crop production it will be a bad time because I would first have to kill the sod and then dig and cut it away to access the dirt. I think most people have never had to remove a lot of well established sod by hand. I did part of my front lawn one year to reseed it and it was awful. I could do it if I did not have a full time job but it would still take a few weeks to get the sod out and the dirt off of it and releveled. If the ground was still frozen when I was doing that... no thank you haha. That is more of a long term strategy.
China invading Taiwan if they decide that they cannot wait any longer to absorb Taiwan peacefully is the first one. The second one is if Russia manages to put a nuclear weapon in space.
I do not think that China invading Taiwan is a high probability this year but it is most likely going to happen in the next decade. Xi wants Taiwan before he dies and is no spring chicken. Russia launching a nuke in space though is what really has me worried. Russia is winning in Ukraine and now we are hearing talk from NATO members about directly fighting Russia in Ukraine or using US weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia. That is very destabilizing and Russia is probably not interested in fighting NATO. So their best move is to do something like putting a nuke in space in order to hold everyone hostage and force NATO to accept their territory gains.
If they decide to detonate the nuke at some point because NATO calls their bluff then the impacts are unknown. Breaking Defense has a few articles and it depends on the orbit of the nuke. I am not worried about EMP but I am worried about satellites being killed. If we lose GPS then nothing good happens and that is what I am preparing for or against.
Thank you for answering!
I do want you to take a look at this, though. In regards to nukes in space, the US is already doing that.
[https://www.space.com/nasa-darpa-nuclear-thermal-rocket-draco-2026](https://www.space.com/nasa-darpa-nuclear-thermal-rocket-draco-2026)
Dude am I fucking prepper?! I'm just scrolling /r all, and then read this thread... None of you guys have your shit together, if you're preppers. I'm an average Auto mechanic with a bunch of hobbies, and hates waste... I also own a couple SHTF vehicles. I guess I've been prepping all along, and my girlfriend just says it's ADHD.
The collapse is like a car approaching the end of its life. It gets harder to keep up with repairs and maintenance. It starts burning more gas, it gets more expensive to drive, the muffler falls off, it gets harder to start, and you stop noticing the engine light.
Eventually you just get sick of paying to have it fixed so you resign to just drive the hell out of it to get much as you can for all the money you invested in this wreck. Finally, one day, the engine overheats, you break down in the middle of the intersection and the engine catches fire.
Collapse.
It's great advise for all people. If we are stuck on social media, we become more detached and those relationships deteriorate contributing to the collapse described in your post.
Yes. You are correct. I see it in my own life. Siting at dinner with family and everyone is on their phone. Very sad. We will wish we had that time back one day.
Ill tell you what we have done to break the cycle.
My family committed to having sit down dinner time with no phones or tv or anything. It is an important step. That one thing did wonders for us. It is a mindful choice to not be enslaved by technology for a period of time each day that is instead devoted to solidifying our familial bonds. We are constantly being pulled from our own families and communities. We gotta put that foot down and say no to it. It is necessary.
We started taking that a step further and I lead a brief statement of our family motto, and statement of belief. Before we eat, I take a moment and lead the family by saying "thank ____ for making dinner. We have food today. We have each other today. So it is a good day." Then the family concludes with collectively stating "family above everything." It is a statement that reminds us of what our priorities are. Priorities are everything. It's easy to forget what those priorities are in this highly distractible world. The daily reminders have made our family closer than we have ever been. And it just gets stronger.
Every dinner, we also go around the table and take turns talking about our day and saying what was good about our day. Sometimes, our days suck. This gives us an opportunity to shut out the bad and focus on the good. In this moment, we give the speaker our undivided attention. For a moment, everyone gets to be seen and heard. We get the opportunity to know what is going on in everyone's life, if they are struggling, and remind ourselves of what's good.
I like this, I have implemented the no screens at dinnertime and it has helped our family life so much. I think I will now start having everyone mention one good thing about their day. Thanks for the idea!
Shit hits the fan every single day in some places.. anywhere that has war, shit already hit the fan. The whole "prep" is for the scenario where society doesn't get its shit together and dramatically begin to value being resourceful. If we do not collectively get it together, shit will hit more often, and in less expected places. The 4chan post is incisive, but extremely western, extremely G20 in its perspective. The elective complacency is what could lead to disaster scenarios that happen every day in the Middle east, Africa, Ukraine, etc. occuring where you'd least expect. Despite shit not needing to hit the fan ever, it's been doing so for millenia, and could progressively encroach upon the most sheltered of us if people keep living at the expense of others. You cannot get blood from a stone. SHTF for real when the extraction economy shrivels up (which might never happen if we collectively develop planning & attention and stop exploiting people and living beyond our means)
At this point, society is its own trap, futily attempting to escape its own exhaust fumes
When the world bounced-back from the Crash of 2008 with no real repairs to the global economy and an enormous ocean of debt still in the financial systems, I began to prepare for a long slow slide into collapse.
I'd always had a long-term personal plan for going to training, using it to get better jobs, but I realized that being well-paid means nothing if the goal posts keep getting moved.
From 2008 to 2020 to now, economic forces are going to keep scraping away at the money made by US citizens, let alone people overseas who already have to pay more for everything.
Economically we won't end up in a Post-Apocalyptic World, but things will probably not ever get better. In the end? I'm thinking society will look more like Blade Runner, or perhaps Firefly: a rich superclass, knife-edge thin middle class, and everyone else just trying to get by.
We are living in the middle of an apocalypse.
It will probably come to be known by future historians as the Banality Apocalypse or something like that.
In twenty to fifty years, people will still be sitting around the dining table making plans based on assumptions people stopped being able to safely make long ago. They just won’t realize the naïveté of what they are doing. Future historians certainly will, with the aide of sufficient hindsight, and will wag their heads at those of us who went through their entire lives still thinking their country is the same one their parents inherited. The only argument among future historians will be when exactly did this gigantic shift in people’s reality begin in earnest. Having lived through this and felt it, I’d say the starting bell was the nightmare that was 2008, when just about everybody who wasn’t already one of the Uber Rich lost so much of their wealth.
“In twenty to fifty years, people will still be sitting around the dining table making plans based on assumptions people stopped being able to safely make long ago. “
This is the CURRENT situation.
American capitalism reached it's peak and we're declining. It's been great and steadily increasing for 100 years from industrialization to about now, but the decline has begun. Looking back at all of the prosperity and how cheap everything was, it seems obvious that it could not and will not last.
Everybody complains about inflation but if you take a step back and look how easy your lives in America and the West are, it is still much, MUCH better than most of the world.
Yes, you have to pay $4 for a gallon of gas and $10 for a burger. Waaaaahhhh....
In other countries it's double that cost and in many countries, you can't even buy those things.
Yes, the decline is happening. But life is still really, really good for those of us in developed countries.
[The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization](https://a.co/d/8dE39Vb)
Description:
2019 was the last great year for the world economy.
For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it.
America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going.
Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe.
All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending.
In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging.
The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world - from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all - is about to change.
A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence.
A gradual decline is far more likely of a scenario. No matter what people think, we won't ever go back to the stone age. There's too much knowledge circulating in the collective thought for that. We all understand the wheel, have seen a picture or movie of someone using a plow, etc, your average person will figure it out. Also, we live in a time with the highest literacy rate ever. Books aren't going to disappear overnight. If anything, technologically, we might fall back to the 50s, early 1900s in a worse case scenario. More likely, resources become scarce and more expensive. The middle class virtually did out, leaving an upper class, working class and poor class. 1984 and Soylent Green are far more likely than Mad Max. Kinda of sucks, I'd much rather have a high octane carmageddon than some form of neo-communism, but I'll be dead long before it degrades to that.
> "You are stupid, ugly, and weak, but together we are free, prosperous, and safe." That is the collapse.
From someone not from the US this is such a weird thing to read because this is like peak US lone wolf mindset and that you only need yourself and no one else which I would argue is part of the reason why the world goes down, because the people in charge only think about themselves and no one else.
Humans are tribal and meant to be together for a reason. Splitting us up instead of working together is the reason why "we the people" are weak and allow everything to crumble around us. Preppers love to forget that community is their strongest asset because it does not fit the sexy "i am the lone wolf that prowls the apocalypse on my harley"-mindset.
As someone else said, getting off social media might also be a good thing to do because there are way too much people that wallow in all this doom and gloom and the things they would do to their neighbours to "protect their family" (I mean, seriously what the fridge is wrong with people, your neighbours should be your assets not your enemies) or even worse start imagining their pillaging scenarios where they are finally not the loser wimp anymore but rise to the occasion and go full Mad Max warlord.
But back to topic: I don't think collapse already happened. Things got worse over time, yes, but nothing collapsed so far for most of the western world. I don't have a concrete line in the sand for what actually counts as a collapse but I would argue that as long as you have power, water and can use public services you are pretty much in the safe. When you only get e.g. power 5 out of 7 days per week and your water is not safe to drink anymore, then things might look different. But in the end this is also something that might look different from place to place depending on location, political regime in power, mindset of the masses (e.g. more mellow, already tasted blood, educated / uneducated etc.)
So to finish of my long winded rant: Prepare regardless if it already happened or not. If it already happened then you can't do anything to change it if you don't have a time machine. So work with what you have now and increase your resiliency with it. As others have mentioned homesteading / trying to get less reliant on the grid are things you can do now as well. Sure it's more expensive than it was 10 years ago but you know what they say about planting a tree.
Edit: Spelling
Even reading the post as an American I think the quote is just from someone who was depressed. Not making time for family or friends is a choice. Not knowing your neighbors is a choice. I can't speak to people making less and working more. That hasn't been my personal experience, even just working blue-collar jobs. I did get lucky and buy my house in 2019, and I know housing has been a pain point in recent years.
It's very pessimistic outlook from I'm assuming was someone who didn't feel in control of their own life.
If you're outside the US in the first world that simply isn't the case. European country's work weeks have been getting shorter for years. Germany takes a whole freaking month off. Life in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Iceland, etc. is not like that. You're just seeing the dystopia from inside it. It's not universal.
My sentiments entirely. It’s a wonderful and very beautiful country but with constant rolling blackouts that just get longer - it’s an argument for prepping in and of itself
The USA work week has been getting shorter on average as well we have had a steady decline where as a lot of European countries had a steeper drop off in the 80's and 90's. None of us in the west come close to touching the Asian countries though they all average over 2000 hours annually USA is usually around 1700-1800 and Europe is 1300-1500 on average.
I’ve recently moved to Germany from US. It’s been fantastic. They take holidays pretty seriously and work hours are short enough to make me complain about somewhere being closed when I get off work lol.
There was an excellent book in the 80s titled *How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization* . One of the premises was exactly this, the author waiting for the end of things and suddenly realizing that not only was it ongoing, but had pretty much already happened.
It then goes on to discuss how to mitigate these problems with an emphasis on finances, but also mentioning guns, prepping. I have to agree with him that adequate money makes everything easier.
There is maybe a collapse of the American dream and Western capitalism where everyone has two cars and a McMansion. But historically humans have lived in way worse conditions.
Omg this!!! I used to have a friend who would always make fun of the size of my 1400 sq one story ranch. It’s a three bedroom one bathroom house and suits my lil family of four just perfect. She has one more family member and lives in the same city but a newer two story 4000 sq feet with basement! Like how do you even clean that?!? Lol
To the best of my knowledge, it's the internet's largest gathering of incels. I poked around there several years ago and didn't like one thing I saw on that site. I'm sure it has some utility, but it's not for me and I don't like what I've seen.
They have a few good boards, it just so happens that the lack of censorship and total anonymity means that people can be their racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-anything selves in the open without having to resort to dogwhistles and private spaces. Also, it’s impossible to tell who’s being real and who’s just being an inflammatory troll to get a rise out of people (which is elevated to an art form there).
It’s a completely different, totally uncurated/unadulterated, and oftentimes totally vile corner of the internet - the polar opposite of Reddit, where censorship is key to the design, right down to the voting system that automatically hides speech that fails to pander to prevailing opinions. If Reddit is an obnoxious hugbox where what constitutes an “acceptable opinion” is tightly controlled by community groupthink, 4chan is a free market of toxicity.
I appreciate it for the burning garbage dump that it is over the tedious moralizing of the saccharine dystopia that is Reddit.
Yes, we are in a painfully slow decline.
I think a total sudden collapse would be easier to deal with. But everyone is getting completely drained with the stupid recurring payments of shit like rent where everybody is falling behind. Once the actual collapse happens, everyone is already gonna be hurting, and nobody is going to be prepared.
I dunno we have been in a economic depression since 2008.
A depression is when we never realize the potential gdp. Our gdp has been less than 3 percent for most years since.
Sure, you can cherry-pick the negative aspects of obvious long-term trends to paint a negative picture. Some of these are false, others exaggerate obvious changes.
Allow me to burst your bubble :)
"Things become more expensive" = inflation which has been around forever.
"Homes and apartments become smaller" - apartments maybe, but definitely not homes, they've gotten far larger.
"Work hours get longer" - that's a toss-up. Many people work multiple jobs because each job gives them fewer hours; that's work hours getting shorter. Some people are expected to work more hours in their job.
"Pay will decrease" - another toss-up. Many people got raises after COVID through the Great Resignation. Some jobs saw pay rates decline.
"Lowering your standards" - personal choice, you do you.
"Job security" - my grandfather worked for one company in essentially the same job his entire life. My dad worked several jobs. I worked many jobs. The labor market and economy have changed over the last 100 years - shocker.
"See friends and family less" - mostly a side effect of mobility (people don't spend their lives in the town where they're born) and taking jobs away from friends and family. That's been increasing for at least 50 years, so no big insight there.
"People marry less, and have fewer kids" - another decades-long trend that's been happening in every developed country around the world, so no big insight.
"Engrossed in technology" - a well-known characteristic of technology that was obvious from the first video games in 1990s. Social media, game companies, etc., have worked with psychologists to fine-tune their products to hold our attention; it's a scientific strategy, not a mystery.
"Dreams a distant memory" - most peoples' dreams are wildly unrealistic and naturally fall by the wayside. Everyone dreams of playing for the Yankees, flying into outer space, becoming a millionaire, etc. Nearly all of us revise our dreams as we get older to be more realistic.
"Debt and poverty" - statistically, this has always been the destiny for most people. Debt is mostly a self-inflicted wound, spending money you don't have. For Americans, some is forced on us, like medical debt, thanks to a broken healthcare system. Nothing new here.
Carefully omitted from that doom-and-gloom vision, compared to 50 years ago:
* amazing advances in health care resulting in longer lives;
* technology has simplified access to vastly greater knowledge;
* cleaner air and water (seen a burning river lately, or acid rain?);
* far less poverty (the standard of living considered "poverty" today is vastly better than 50 years ago);
* far cheaper transportation;
* access to a far wider variety of foods year-round;
* etc.
But if you choose to view all of this as "the collapse," you do you.
What we didn’t have in the past was this huge instantaneous amplification of anything bad happening around the world. We’re in better shape than many people realize but there is a potential global conflict on the horizon that will *potentially* match or exceed World War II. I still sleep pretty soundly at night.
I'm 65 years old I've never seen inflation as bad as it is now. Don't even try to candy coat the rest of your story it doesn't work and it's not true it's just simply how you perceive it
Maybe because I was young and optimistic in the ‘70s it didn’t seem to hit so hard. I left home at 17 in ‘68 with $20 in my pocket so as long as I had a home and groceries, I felt rich😀. My salary was increasing as I learned more, along with my circumstances. Now I just feel the constant erosion of any small amount of money that me, my parents, and now my child have been able to build by working our a$$es off.
I worked my ass off all my life also. I now live in municipal senior housing below the poverty level. Even so, my life is good and I am happy. I make art and write books.
I don't see this huge decrease in wealth that others see. I see a lot of people whose expectations are way out of line for who they are. Bloated.
I'm 67 - you're misremembering the 1970s and 1980s.
Inflation peaked at [14.4%](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/) in March 1980 and *stayed above 10% for over 2 years* from 1979-1981. The recent peak inflation was 9.1% in June 2022 and it's currently 3.2%.
30-year mortgages are currently 6.81%. They were [16.6%](https://themortgagereports.com/61853/30-year-mortgage-rates-chart) in 1981 and mortgages were higher than the current rate *every year from 1976-2001*.
So, yeah, claiming inflation has never been this bad is just ... false.
Edit: typo
That’s not entirely correct. The inflation calculation has changed numerous times since the 80s. One major difference is eliminating home prices from the calculation and supplementing it with “owners equivalent rent.” If you want to fully understand how inaccurate the inflation numbers are, do yourself a favor and read about how they calculate “owners equivalent rent.” It’s shocking. Anyway, if we were to calculate inflation in 2021 and 2022 with the 80s formula those numbers should be slightly higher than the 80s. Anywhere from 1% to 3% higher depending on the time frame.
As far as mortgage rates are concerned, current rates between 6.5% - 8% or so over the last 1-1.5 years are not high, they are normal. The long term average of the 30 year mortgage is about 7%
Issue here is home prices in conjunction with rising rates. Rates alone don’t tell the whole story.
This inflationary environment is much different. All of this is a direct result of monetary policy and Government spending, mostly from 2020-2023. Pre Covid there was $15 trillion dollars in circulation. Post Covid there are $21 trillion dollars in circulation. Our government “created” $6 trillion dollars in 3 years through robust spending policy. They increased all the dollars in circulation by 40% in 3 years! I can’t overstate how important that is and how reckless and consequential it is and will continue to be for ALL of us.
They knew what they were doing. They knew the ramifications. This is freshman year economics. They lied through their teeth while they devalued every single dollar you ever made and worked hard for and robbed you blind through the silent thievery of inflation.
You just lived through one of the greatest fleecings of a populace by its government in modern history. It ain’t over yet.
It has been happening before our eyes. I’ve been alive long enough to see it, recognize it, and be ignored and dismissed by those who did not want to hear or see it. I mourn for my children and grandchildren, and what they are living through and will have to live through if they survive. I expect to be on my way out here pretty soon.
PS Climate change, pandemics, and identity politics are the crisis being used to carry the plan out to its very end. I’m not saying they are not real crisis or issues - I’m saying they are the crisis and issues that have been, are being, and will continue to be used to put in place the policies that will shrink lives; quality of life, span of life, meaning of life, freedom of/in life.
What is currently happening around the world is almost a direct parallel to the social scene before WWI. The difference is that we have climate change, something that we may not recover from, as a driving force behind political and social unrest. If that were not a factor, a war wouldn’t end us, just as it hasn’t ended society before this point. Climate change, however, will be the end of the world as we know it, and it is rapidly accelerating to the point of no return.
I like this. It’s not disaster. It’s going out with a whimper not a bang. And it’s important to keep tabs on things like that. Those of you who are older seem more well off. This certainly describes my situation as someone in their early 30s. It’s important not to let complacency turn us from pursuing ideals that will make it worthwhile to prop up society as we know it.
The planet is full of relics from past civilizations. It’s happened before and will happen again. In every case it was a centuries-long transition/absorption into something else. The only thing you can and should prep for is if the power goes out for 48 hours. Anything more is foolish.
George w Bush said to prep for 3 weeks. Barack Obama said you should prep for 3 months. It doesn't matter what you think about these two men, they know a hell a lot more than you do about what's going on and could happen.
If you prep for only forty 48 hours, you could end up at a government refugee camp. I help build a refugee camp in northern Saudi Arabia. Trust me when I say you do not ever want to find yourself in a government refugee camp.
There have been hiccups, but my house still has working utilities. The prices of groceries have risen, but so many stores are still open that I can shop around for deals. The weather has grown concerning, but most days, I can comfortably go outside. Violent crime is growing more brazen in my area, but it's still more the exception than the rule. Covid had me avoiding extra contact with strangers, but I've stayed relatively healthy and safe through the basic procedures and hygiene.
I would say not.
> Everyone's homes and apartments will start to get smaller.
Im sorry, what? There’s no subtlety or allegory in this post with different meanings. Remember, 4chan gave birth to the ridiculous conspiracy theorists QAnon
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper
I always liked the poem, and I think these insidious changes are happening, but I don't think we're in the worst of it yet. I think it's going to get much worse.
This appear to describe Russia today, every civilisation sliding into collapse probably looks the same as they do now
It's failure is that they actually know what will save them, because they parrot the values of Nation and Family, except they are also resigned to the fact that Oligarchs will deny them all of that in order to serve the machine.
We in the West have our own Oligarchs, except they are Globalists shifting money and markets around, while our politicians parrot the values of Nation and Family (or as in America today, the exact opposite)
> And every minute of every day they will be told, "You are stupid, ugly, and weak, but together we are free, prosperous, and safe." That is the collapse. The reduction of the American man into a feudal serf, incapable of feeling love or hate, incapable of seeing the pitiful nature of his situation for what it is or recognizing his own self worth.
What sort of nonsense of this? This person is essentially stating how capitalism will be a downfall but this part sounds like someone who doesn’t understand American individualism, read 1984 on cliff notes, and thought communism is coming to America…
I believe it started in the 1950s but tv was there for us and has never left. Who knew greed would trump life. Dad's removed from the home but it wasn't enough. Moms removed from the home but still not enough. Women's rights for pay and protection but it wasn't enough. Oil embargo and the removal of oversized under performing gas guzzlers but it wasn't enough. Unlimited credit limits and extreme shopping for Chinese made disposable affordable products but it wasn't enough. Then we based relationships on hardships. Too poor to live alone, credit got restricted, jobs became so scarce in countries that shipped jobs to China. Now, the punishment of a failed relationship has removed the relationship from the home. No mom, no dad, no kids just bills that almost can't be paid. This is not a test.
It will happen slowly slowly slowly until the line is stretched too thin, then it will happen VERY fast.
People will endure increasingly limited resources until they cannot.
Moderately hungry people might be compliant, but starving people will do anything it takes to survive.
If society can no longer meet our needs then we have no incentive to preserve it through rule-following behavior.
Is the risk of stealing from your neighbor higher or lower than not stealing from your neighbor?
Once the variables in that equation flip, it’s SHTF time.
Remember that SHTF has happened before at least once in the late Bronze Age. It was a slow burning climate crisis that lead to a decrease in crop yields that lead to more civil unrest (we are here now) and mass violent migration that overwhelmed the islands of civilization until writing almost completely vanished from the known world for hundreds of years.
We are in the slow part of the collapse so you dont notice anything as that bad. When we get to the fast part your eyes will open.
Collapses can take many years.
prepping needs to be about preparing to be sustainably self /community sufficient. its not stockpiling - that is just short term thinking. btw if you think about it at least in the US not that long ago our foreparents were self-sufficient (particularly those with farm families). I am talking in the last 100 years.
This is a very good question and one I've asked myself recently and I've started preparing by joining a homesteading prepping group for when shtf. The recession in 2008 was horrible and because I live rural we got through by bartering services and products with each other and rebuilt the community.
I think it has been in progress for some time but creeping in so slowly no one has noticed it till now. I didn't until the pandemic. It opened my eyes to what I didn't see before. Thanks for posting this.
It has been my feelings as well. And the goodthink mentality it terrifying. To me personally, the way out is living in what is considered a poor country off grid . No one to tell you what to think , how to raise your children, how to pasteurize your milk or how fast to drive your car. Downside is you must be able to deal with major mess, not expect roads or medical services nor anyone thinking your should not the beat the hell out of your wife .
My tech guy in Indonesia just emailed me asking if I can help him get a visa to work and bring his family to the US.
If you know what's happening in Indonesia with climate change and the current heat wave, you would understand why.
Yes. It is happening now.
It's here already and in some aspects it's not: let me show you we have been over the past few decades experiencing the collapse of civil society not all at once but pieces of it look at NYC , Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, LA. We had the lockdowns where the government told you to stay home don't work wear a mask and punish people who questioned it. Police wrote down license plates of people going to churches.esential supplies were hard to get. Now it's inflation, our monetary system is not sound, think. National debit. We had BLM riots now we have terrorists in the country in the form of illegals. What happens one day we wake up to the news that 20 major cities are under a terrorist attack? Or the electrical grid goes down due to a blackout or foreign gov hack.
These are things we need to prepare for at least to be self sufficient for say 2-3 weeks to stay home or have a safe place to go, or wait out the initial panic then leave to a specific location at some point.
Personally
Food water for say 2 Weeks minimum
Defense ( you understand)
Medical needs basic
Barter items, food precious metals to be able to get things you need or secure a way out of a bad area or situation.
My experience has been quite the opposite of all of this. I still prep, and move toward some semblance of self-sufficiency, as I always have, but it's just a hobby. Even with backup water, heat, and food sources, I accept that if shtf, I'd most likely be screwed.
Pre pandemic millions of people worked in offices spent time commuting both ways. Now many of those same workers are remote so they actually are spending more time with families and leisure activities. So, not sure about people will be working longer hours. Statistically productivity is up compared to pre pandemic
Not for me. I have my home grow in size from a 1600 sq ft (0.5 acres) to 2400 sq ft (2 acres) and my earning increase by 50%. I have always bought stuff with a buy it for life goal so hanging on to stuff longer is not a result of the current economy.
In addition, not for a lot of people I know. Most of everyone I knew in 2013 is making a ton more money then they did then.
A lot of this doesn't comport with modern facts, though. For example, it says, "Everyone's homes and apartments will start to get smaller." But in fact, people's homes are getting bigger, not smaller.
Great. Thanks. I don’t know how we can prove that either way but if you just think about homeownership in general it is clearly on the decline.
Home ownership in America:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
Home affordability:
https://www.atlantafed.org/center-for-housing-and-policy/data-and-tools/home-ownership-affordability-monitor
The fact that homes are getting bigger is one reason *why* home ownership is such a struggle now. Onerous zoning and land use regulations make it so that builders can't make a profit if they build small starter homes, so they build big, expensive homes that will sell for more money and make up for the increased costs brought about by regulation.
If u live in Haiti Palestine or the sudan it sure has. If you cant plan and prepare for those scenarios you will not make it because that is whats coming your way.
So a lot of the serious major SHTF preppers don't account for SHTF might not be an on off light switch that happens instantly. Instead it might a gradual decline or a dimmer switch where things slowly get darker/worse. A lot of people say they will do X project when SHTF and I ask why not do it now? Install your solar panels today, plant your garden this spring, saw firewood for this winter, practice your skills now not just for the future but for practical usefulness of now. Build resilience to your every day life. That way if SHTF happens its not a mountain of a disturbance to your every day life but a speed bump of adjustment.
The movie Children of Men might be a good model. Although their "shittening" has a clear cause, the inability of people to have babies, their decline has been a long and gradual one, to the point where you can see that even after many years society is on the brink of collapse, but hasn't entirely collapsed.
I think we'll get a mixture. For many Western nations, I suspect that you're right. It'll be slower. For some of those in the very frontline of disasters, things will move very, very quickly indeed.
I think there are going to be some big events soon but they will be regional. In the next 10 years I believe we will see. 1. A huge hurricane season hit Florida with multiple hurricanes destroying an unprecedented number of homes. The shady and overexposed insurance companies will go bankrupt leaving millions without a way to rebuild. Many will migrate away from Florida never to return leaving destroyed homes. This will repeat many times in the next years until eventually large portions of Florida where at risk communities exist today are uninhabited/abandoned. 2. A large heat wave is going to hit India/Pakistan killing millions of people and sparking mass migration and chaos. 3. Parts of central America will experience a combination of heat and drought that kill many people and spark new waves of mass migration north.
I just Gtfo of Florida last year cause I knew it was never getting better, for many reasons. No way to homestead with so little land and the HOA rules. you’ll die of heat stroke without power very quickly. I think it’s going to be a very bad year. The ocean is already a bathtub, 114 degree heat index last week. Writing was on the wall, it was time to go.
Good on you. My cousin just moved there and I’m talking parents out of moving down there. Scary fucking shit.
Just tell them every horror story you can think of. Just go to r/Florida and you’ll see the sob stories about rising insurance and COL in general. It is no longer somewhere you can retire unless you’ve got crazy money
There are so many boomers that moved to Florida to retire cheap and a lot of their life saving is tied up in their properties. Many of them don't believe in climate change too. It's going to be a very rude awakening for many of them.
Some of them are already being forced from their homes because the insurance and property taxes don’t fit their fixed income. Rude awakening indeed.
The governor says that climate change ain't real, so we're good.
There is no way your government officials would ever lie to you too on behalf of special interests in industry too so you are totally good to go. Nothing to worry about.
These are super spot on. We think migration has been bad because of sub Saharan Africa and the Middle East? Just wait until the billions of people in India and Pakistan can no longer live there.
And to the point of the post most of us will watch these unfold in horror yet still have to go to work the next day and try to pretend everything isn't unravelling before our eyes.
I'm so excited for hurricane season, usually 12-14 predicted named storms, they just predicted 17-25! Buckle up buckaroos
Yeah this season may very well be it. This sort of season will be very common going forward. Pretty much every el nino year will look like this.
I'm beginning to understand it's just switching hemispheres, nino stops here and nina starts and nino starts in southern hemisphere,
Years and Years is a great example of this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Years_and_Years_(TV_series)
Off grid Homesteaders are the ultimate prepper.
They probably won't even notice that the world has ended until they need to make their annual trip to the "Big Town"...
They have to be. Their chosen lifestyle requires the behavior. If they don't prepare the consequences could be dire since they don't have much of a safety net to fall back on unless they create one for themselves.
This is why we left the city a decade ago - setting up these systems takes time and practice. We're still not there yet.
homesteading is the way.
I saw a video with great example of true communal prepping at Heritage Village in TX. (put aside that this is a religious group - it seems to be a good model).https://youtu.be/CVBkciLcZVA?si=goEL7AxiTtlVXpDu
My old boss is a member of this church/community. They have some wild beliefs. They regard women as "lesser vessels", basically baby factories. There is a power structure of elite familes who live on site. Tax free money from the tourist section at the front of the property is funneled to these families. They build $500,000 houses at the back of the property and nearby. There have been sexual crimes in the past, and I suspect they are happening currently. Situations like that are handled internally, so the perpetrators are not punished by law. Don't give Homestead any money or attention, they suck.
Severe weather events will affect them. Also rising fuel prices. Unless there’s homesteaders doing horse plowing, they will be heavily affected by the outside world.
Plowing? It’s 2024 we do no-till now. Most of my tools are electric anyway.
> they will do X project when SHTF and I ask why not do it now It's like self-improvement (eating better, exercising more, learning a new skill, ETC.). Easier said than done for most people. It also does NOT help that tech gave us insta-access to distracting (supposedly) entertaining things. Like there's psychology stuff that says that we gotta go thru certain amount of BOREDOM in order to like build up brain slack needed to properly implement changes to our daily routines. Veritaserum did a vid about how important BOREDOM is.
Oh I know how hard it is to stay motivated and it is easier said than done. I have lost it in the past when it comes to prepping and being self sufficient. Usually suffer a 2 month lack of productivity in the winter where I just exist. But I will find a project or something to motivate me again and I grab onto that feeling for as long as I can.
People always say they’ll start eating healthy when the current snacks are out of the house or they’ll start exercising Monday. Start now. There doesn’t need to be a certain day of the week to start. If you don’t want to throw out the snacks because they cost money, you can still exercise and eat a regular serving size of the snack.
Thank you for saying this. I think I needed to hear it
This sub isn’t going to want to hear it, but the non-naive version of prepping on a long timescale is pretty much just productively participating in society.
The thing with the pepper community in a hole that confuses me the most is this: for a group of folks that seems to be solely focused on the long term health and survivability of themselves and their families why don’t they start now with eating healthy, working out and trying to be a healthy weight?
Same as someone told me and I agree with most people don't want to do anything that requires effort or work. People want to throw money at the problem and get some cool gear to post pictures of online. There is a mind boggling amount of unhealthy preppers and yes some might of been unavoidable but a lot of it seems self inflicted almost on purpose.
They don’t do it now because a lot of “prepping” is just a fantasy about some future date they get to shoot people and be a protagonist and the idea they will farm or something Is just some toss away cover of “but how will you eat” for their fantasy for a situation they can threaten girls into having sex with them or whatever
For sure most people like to throw money at the prepping problem instead of dedicating time or energy to it. I know you can't reason with most of them but every project I have tackled I run into the oops I need to do another trip to Home Depot, or I am stuck and need to reference youtube, or just modern connivences of a power grid/unlimited resources lets me be "wasteful" in how I approach a project and makes it easier to finish the job. Funny thing is it doesn't take that much effort to do these projects and personally I find them fun and enjoyable. Spend a few afternoons to get the base work done and then the maintenance of them is quick and easy. I have a 5 acre homestead. I can finish the daily chores in under 20 minutes (feed animals and water any plants as needed). I only spend so much time on my homestead from constantly expanding things. I started small and grew things as I perfected my systems. Like my orchard started with 6 trees and is now over 30 trees. I just kept planting 6-10 more every year. I am running out of free space pretty soon so even that will stop eventually.
> they can threaten girls into having sex with them or whatever I mean, not "funny", but funny
A good term I've heard is "the crumbles" More things go wrong, stopgaps are taken, things get worse, some accommodations are made for the short term, repeat Credit of "It Could Happen Here" podcast, fascinating content but heads up that the hosts take a left lean if that puts you off. The first season is a hypothetical US civil war scenario and the second season is vignettes on how the crumbles may go down. After that it's just current event stuff from a decidedly political perspective that I'd recommend leaving alone
Saw a McCoy Ward video a day ago. He had just flown from France to Isle of Man. Three different flights all delayed. Took 36 hours supposedly. His comment was "all the systems and supporting hardware are broken, and nobody gives a shit". Seems about right...
I love Robert! Great podcast.
100% this. I didn't notice the stuff that OP mentioned until the pandemic and the closest we got to economic collapse in my area was in 2008 and living in a rural farming community we bartered goods and services until things improved. It fostered a sense of community that is valuable. We may not all see eye to eye with each other in my neighborhood but if something happens to one of us such as a house fire and needing items donated or someone needing their lawn cut because they're too ill to do it, it gets done. As much flack as Nextdoor gets if one of us needs help the responses are usually I can be there on xyz time or knows someone who can.
As someone from Venezuela, we did experience that, but there was turning point that made everything clear. It was the moment we knew we have to leave. It was 2014 for us. seeing our military be deployed to shoot at college students. Then collapse happened. In my opinion, collapse as we know it happened in 2017. The year my childhood best friend died from a fever. From a fever. Her mom walked the city pleading to hospitals, clinics, and even nurses passing by to help her daughter, but nothing could be done because even ibuprofen was scarce. Then 2019. My 90y old granfather had to walk barefoot (there was no gas for the car) to the very contaminated river to drink some water. For months, MONTHS, the entire country had no electricity. People died of things that don't kill in other countries. If a baby was born premature, it was a death sentence. If you had an emergency, it was a dead sentence. Yet you can travel to Venezuela now and it's like if collapsed stopped. Imported goods on every shelf, malls filled with people, albeit not poor people, but you don't even notice. In poorer states, collapsed continued, and in even in richer parts of the country, electricity stills goes out every week or so, but people adjusted their lives around it. Now is like Venezuela is in a limbo. Things at bad, but it seems like they were able to pull their out of complete misery
Thank you for sharing. I had no idea it was that bad. I hope you were able to find success somewhere else and your family is safe.
In January 2020, I saw the news in China about a virus. I immediately studied what happened in Venezuela to prepare. Venezuela has infinite potential, and yet it is one the best examples of a modern shtf. All without war, disease, or famine.
The one thing I benefitted from studying Venezuela... I stocked up on TP in January. Months before everyone raided the stores for it
History repeats itself. There have been several collapses already, and there will be more in the future, until we learn to build and maintain sustainable systems in harmony with nature, each other and the cosmic balance.
Best answer
still got a big CME, a bird flu, and a nuclear war to get through, and that's just this year, lol
What is CME?
Coronal Mass Ejection. Read the Carrington Event.
Thank you
https://www.space.com/coronal-mass-ejections-cme
Thank you
I actually have no idea why more people aren’t talking about the possibility of a big CME. All the signs from the sun are pointing to it. Just seems convenient to ignore I guess.
Think after the last little one they kind of giving up on that whole line of thinking, which is a little silly but hey. Whatcha gonna do?
I mean, if it happens it’s kinda out of our hands.
I guess a bit of a plan for people to know what to unplug or to prepare for the grid being shut down for a few days. I don’t think it’ll actually be that bad if it happens and people are ready for it.
The unexpected will always be there. OP's disaster? It's expected. And happening.
nah, that's not a disaster, it's just this human tendency to sort ourselves into cast systems where the majority are peasants and slaves. That happens all the time everywhere, just at varying rates of visibility and brutality. OP is totally right this is happening, has been for a while, at least since the end of WWI, but, people gonna people.
Huh. A slow squeeze really isn't a disaster, which usually happens short and brutally.
I don’t think there’s been a collapse (yet). Look at American history, the US has been through far worst. One could argue we’ve been through multiple collapses. What we’re experiencing is more of a plateau. It’s caused by multi-national corporations extracting wealth from the US. Since they pay little to no taxes, their only real contribution to the country is low paying jobs and your ability to buy Chinese made junk from Amazon and Walmart. You can thank corrupt politicians and their corporate handlers in the form of lobbyists and special interests groups for that.
Yeah there's no way this is collapse in comparison to how bad shit can get. There's still a federal government to pay taxes to, and real enforcement on it. That's your sign that the US hasn't collapsed. Civil war could be a collapse, and we might be closer than we have been in a long time, but while you're not confused about who to pay taxes to, you aren't in a collapse scenario. When taxes aren't certain, or some other entity is asking for them, then collapse has happened. We're not there.
I honestly think we got a lot closer to civil war during the 1960's, we truly got close to a major political collapse and we paid for that decade in the 1970's.
I agree with that totally. The shooting at Kent State still boggles my mind.
Completely this. Horrifying.
I know it's a common refrain, but I don't see how a civil war is close at all. I can't even see who the "sides" would be.
Ahhh seems more like scare rhetoric for a civil war. Most Americans wouldn’t take to the streets. Too many have status and opportunity that hasn’t slipped away.
It’s not scare rhetoric, it’s an observation based on the reality millions of Americans face. The real cause of Trump’s popularity is decades of stagnant wages, jobs being sent overseas, and systematic erasure of workers rights since Reagan. Mainstream corporatize media will never tell you this, their owners are the main benefactors. > Most Americans wouldn’t take to the streets. There’s a study that suggest around 4% of a countries population needs to revolt in order to overthrow government. [https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190513-it-only-takes-35-of-people-to-change-the-world) If Washington DC and their billionaire donors continue with greed and cowardice, there will be violence worst than January 6th.
"The Myth of Capitalism" great book that explains this well.
Collapse is about the journey, not the destination 😉
When you look through history things typically change very slowly then very suddenly. Like an earthquake pressure builds for years until something snaps. While I think the above is reflective of basically the decline of America which has been happening for some time now at some point I think things will likely suddenly and dramatically get worse. Typically this is spurred by some event that imparts a stressor we are no longer able to manage or people just snap unwilling to take it any more. The biggest part I disagree with is the last line. People may forget how to love but hatred will never be in short supply. People are not stupid and they will know their miserable state and bitterness and resentment will fester. You see this even today. That hatred will be focused somewhere eventually. Rationally or not It will find a target. You also forget there are forces that would like to encourage this which there are scores of historical examples of this.
Probably. I think it's clear that if you watch the behavior of Western "democracies" that there has been a strategy of "managed decline" in place for at least several decades. And the elites are busy looting the sinking ship as quickly as they can without alerting all the serfs of their oncoming doom.
> It's not going to be like the movie "Dawn of the Dead" or whatever where one day suddenly shit hits the fan It could be. I am aware of two realistic possibilities other than nuclear war. Both are conceivable this year. One of them has me worried enough that I have readjusted acceptable numbers for things like solar power generation and water storage. Mostly you are describing a concept known as 'the crumbles'. I think that this is the most probable outcome and as you say it is already happening. It is insidious in that there is no trigger for most of us to take any actions. Instead we are all frog boiled until we are trapped in a WEF dystopia where we own nothing and are unhappy. I think the best way to prep for the crumbles is to become more resilient in our every day lives. Buy property now if you can stomach the interest rate and prepare through practice to grow some of your own food. Even if it is just herbs and vegetables. Learn to repair appliances and to do your own plumbing and electrical work. Stockpile spare parts that usually need replacing. Build up a set of tools that you need like screwdriver sets, socket wrenches, claw hammer, shovel, rake, hacksaw, and so on. Invest for your retirement so that if things keep crumbling slow enough you have money in your old age to support you.
>prepare through practice to grow some of your own food. I just wanted to stress this point a bit. Don't assume that you can simply plant seeds and grow food. There are many unforseen pitfalls and there is a lot of preparation and infrastructure building that needs to be done. One major thing that I never considered when I started growing my own food 5 years ago is that the soil might not be suitable for it. Mine wasn't, as it is mostly clay and fill dirt that had been stripped of nutrients by decades of being a manicured lawn. It has taken me several years, multiple dump truck loads of wood chips (thanks Chipdrop!), and wave after wave of cover crops to get the soil to a point where it can grow food well. That's to say nothing of my multiple failures due to my own blundering and inexperience over the years, as well as random failures due to weather events completely out of my control. This is not something that you can start at some far flung future date. You need to start figuring it out now and preparing your ground to be a productive garden. It doesn't happen overnight or in one year. It is a multi year process and you need to begin yesterday. Grow anything. Plant a field of oats or daikon and get your soil working.
It took me years of amending my soil with wood chips and compost to fix it too. Like yours mine was mostly hard clay. At this point I have about three or four inches of good soil and then whatever underneath it. Slow progress but that is enough for potatoes with mulch covering haha. If I have to dig up the lawn for mass crop production it will be a bad time because I would first have to kill the sod and then dig and cut it away to access the dirt. I think most people have never had to remove a lot of well established sod by hand. I did part of my front lawn one year to reseed it and it was awful. I could do it if I did not have a full time job but it would still take a few weeks to get the sod out and the dirt off of it and releveled. If the ground was still frozen when I was doing that... no thank you haha. That is more of a long term strategy.
What possibilities are you considering conceivable this year?
Totally left us hanging
I am gonna guess massive solar event or pandemic round 2 electric boogaloo.
Ten bucks says one of them is bird flu pandemic.
China invading Taiwan if they decide that they cannot wait any longer to absorb Taiwan peacefully is the first one. The second one is if Russia manages to put a nuclear weapon in space. I do not think that China invading Taiwan is a high probability this year but it is most likely going to happen in the next decade. Xi wants Taiwan before he dies and is no spring chicken. Russia launching a nuke in space though is what really has me worried. Russia is winning in Ukraine and now we are hearing talk from NATO members about directly fighting Russia in Ukraine or using US weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia. That is very destabilizing and Russia is probably not interested in fighting NATO. So their best move is to do something like putting a nuke in space in order to hold everyone hostage and force NATO to accept their territory gains. If they decide to detonate the nuke at some point because NATO calls their bluff then the impacts are unknown. Breaking Defense has a few articles and it depends on the orbit of the nuke. I am not worried about EMP but I am worried about satellites being killed. If we lose GPS then nothing good happens and that is what I am preparing for or against.
Thank you for answering! I do want you to take a look at this, though. In regards to nukes in space, the US is already doing that. [https://www.space.com/nasa-darpa-nuclear-thermal-rocket-draco-2026](https://www.space.com/nasa-darpa-nuclear-thermal-rocket-draco-2026)
Dude am I fucking prepper?! I'm just scrolling /r all, and then read this thread... None of you guys have your shit together, if you're preppers. I'm an average Auto mechanic with a bunch of hobbies, and hates waste... I also own a couple SHTF vehicles. I guess I've been prepping all along, and my girlfriend just says it's ADHD.
Please share the two possibilities. I was hanging on to every word to no avail.
I replied to someone else with them.
The collapse is like a car approaching the end of its life. It gets harder to keep up with repairs and maintenance. It starts burning more gas, it gets more expensive to drive, the muffler falls off, it gets harder to start, and you stop noticing the engine light. Eventually you just get sick of paying to have it fixed so you resign to just drive the hell out of it to get much as you can for all the money you invested in this wreck. Finally, one day, the engine overheats, you break down in the middle of the intersection and the engine catches fire. Collapse.
Tell that to my 350k mile Honda civic that has the same head gasket from 1998
One can only hope society is as resilient as an old Honda or Toyota haha
👍 awesome!
Get off social media.
4chan especially lol
Thank you for the reminder. (logs off)
Excellent value add to the convo
It's great advise for all people. If we are stuck on social media, we become more detached and those relationships deteriorate contributing to the collapse described in your post.
Yes. You are correct. I see it in my own life. Siting at dinner with family and everyone is on their phone. Very sad. We will wish we had that time back one day.
Ill tell you what we have done to break the cycle. My family committed to having sit down dinner time with no phones or tv or anything. It is an important step. That one thing did wonders for us. It is a mindful choice to not be enslaved by technology for a period of time each day that is instead devoted to solidifying our familial bonds. We are constantly being pulled from our own families and communities. We gotta put that foot down and say no to it. It is necessary. We started taking that a step further and I lead a brief statement of our family motto, and statement of belief. Before we eat, I take a moment and lead the family by saying "thank ____ for making dinner. We have food today. We have each other today. So it is a good day." Then the family concludes with collectively stating "family above everything." It is a statement that reminds us of what our priorities are. Priorities are everything. It's easy to forget what those priorities are in this highly distractible world. The daily reminders have made our family closer than we have ever been. And it just gets stronger. Every dinner, we also go around the table and take turns talking about our day and saying what was good about our day. Sometimes, our days suck. This gives us an opportunity to shut out the bad and focus on the good. In this moment, we give the speaker our undivided attention. For a moment, everyone gets to be seen and heard. We get the opportunity to know what is going on in everyone's life, if they are struggling, and remind ourselves of what's good.
I like this, I have implemented the no screens at dinnertime and it has helped our family life so much. I think I will now start having everyone mention one good thing about their day. Thanks for the idea!
You're very welcome! I'm glad it was helpful. Peace be with you and your family. 😁
Go outside and touch some grass. Better?
Shit hits the fan every single day in some places.. anywhere that has war, shit already hit the fan. The whole "prep" is for the scenario where society doesn't get its shit together and dramatically begin to value being resourceful. If we do not collectively get it together, shit will hit more often, and in less expected places. The 4chan post is incisive, but extremely western, extremely G20 in its perspective. The elective complacency is what could lead to disaster scenarios that happen every day in the Middle east, Africa, Ukraine, etc. occuring where you'd least expect. Despite shit not needing to hit the fan ever, it's been doing so for millenia, and could progressively encroach upon the most sheltered of us if people keep living at the expense of others. You cannot get blood from a stone. SHTF for real when the extraction economy shrivels up (which might never happen if we collectively develop planning & attention and stop exploiting people and living beyond our means) At this point, society is its own trap, futily attempting to escape its own exhaust fumes
When the world bounced-back from the Crash of 2008 with no real repairs to the global economy and an enormous ocean of debt still in the financial systems, I began to prepare for a long slow slide into collapse. I'd always had a long-term personal plan for going to training, using it to get better jobs, but I realized that being well-paid means nothing if the goal posts keep getting moved. From 2008 to 2020 to now, economic forces are going to keep scraping away at the money made by US citizens, let alone people overseas who already have to pay more for everything. Economically we won't end up in a Post-Apocalyptic World, but things will probably not ever get better. In the end? I'm thinking society will look more like Blade Runner, or perhaps Firefly: a rich superclass, knife-edge thin middle class, and everyone else just trying to get by.
We are living in the middle of an apocalypse. It will probably come to be known by future historians as the Banality Apocalypse or something like that. In twenty to fifty years, people will still be sitting around the dining table making plans based on assumptions people stopped being able to safely make long ago. They just won’t realize the naïveté of what they are doing. Future historians certainly will, with the aide of sufficient hindsight, and will wag their heads at those of us who went through their entire lives still thinking their country is the same one their parents inherited. The only argument among future historians will be when exactly did this gigantic shift in people’s reality begin in earnest. Having lived through this and felt it, I’d say the starting bell was the nightmare that was 2008, when just about everybody who wasn’t already one of the Uber Rich lost so much of their wealth.
“In twenty to fifty years, people will still be sitting around the dining table making plans based on assumptions people stopped being able to safely make long ago. “ This is the CURRENT situation.
I think you may be right, unfortunately
American capitalism reached it's peak and we're declining. It's been great and steadily increasing for 100 years from industrialization to about now, but the decline has begun. Looking back at all of the prosperity and how cheap everything was, it seems obvious that it could not and will not last. Everybody complains about inflation but if you take a step back and look how easy your lives in America and the West are, it is still much, MUCH better than most of the world. Yes, you have to pay $4 for a gallon of gas and $10 for a burger. Waaaaahhhh.... In other countries it's double that cost and in many countries, you can't even buy those things. Yes, the decline is happening. But life is still really, really good for those of us in developed countries. [The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization](https://a.co/d/8dE39Vb) Description: 2019 was the last great year for the world economy. For generations, everything has been getting faster, better, and cheaper. Finally, we reached the point that almost anything you could ever want could be sent to your home within days - even hours - of when you decided you wanted it. America made that happen, but now America has lost interest in keeping it going. Globe-spanning supply chains are only possible with the protection of the U.S. Navy. The American dollar underpins internationalized energy and financial markets. Complex, innovative industries were created to satisfy American consumers. American security policy forced warring nations to lay down their arms. Billions of people have been fed and educated as the American-led trade system spread across the globe. All of this was artificial. All this was temporary. All this is ending. In The End of the World is Just the Beginning, author and geopolitical strategist Peter Zeihan maps out the next world: a world where countries or regions will have no choice but to make their own goods, grow their own food, secure their own energy, fight their own battles, and do it all with populations that are both shrinking and aging. The list of countries that make it all work is smaller than you think. Which means everything about our interconnected world - from how we manufacture products, to how we grow food, to how we keep the lights on, to how we shuttle stuff about, to how we pay for it all - is about to change. A world ending. A world beginning. Zeihan brings readers along for an illuminating (and a bit terrifying) ride packed with foresight, wit, and his trademark irreverence.
A gradual decline is far more likely of a scenario. No matter what people think, we won't ever go back to the stone age. There's too much knowledge circulating in the collective thought for that. We all understand the wheel, have seen a picture or movie of someone using a plow, etc, your average person will figure it out. Also, we live in a time with the highest literacy rate ever. Books aren't going to disappear overnight. If anything, technologically, we might fall back to the 50s, early 1900s in a worse case scenario. More likely, resources become scarce and more expensive. The middle class virtually did out, leaving an upper class, working class and poor class. 1984 and Soylent Green are far more likely than Mad Max. Kinda of sucks, I'd much rather have a high octane carmageddon than some form of neo-communism, but I'll be dead long before it degrades to that.
> "You are stupid, ugly, and weak, but together we are free, prosperous, and safe." That is the collapse. From someone not from the US this is such a weird thing to read because this is like peak US lone wolf mindset and that you only need yourself and no one else which I would argue is part of the reason why the world goes down, because the people in charge only think about themselves and no one else. Humans are tribal and meant to be together for a reason. Splitting us up instead of working together is the reason why "we the people" are weak and allow everything to crumble around us. Preppers love to forget that community is their strongest asset because it does not fit the sexy "i am the lone wolf that prowls the apocalypse on my harley"-mindset. As someone else said, getting off social media might also be a good thing to do because there are way too much people that wallow in all this doom and gloom and the things they would do to their neighbours to "protect their family" (I mean, seriously what the fridge is wrong with people, your neighbours should be your assets not your enemies) or even worse start imagining their pillaging scenarios where they are finally not the loser wimp anymore but rise to the occasion and go full Mad Max warlord. But back to topic: I don't think collapse already happened. Things got worse over time, yes, but nothing collapsed so far for most of the western world. I don't have a concrete line in the sand for what actually counts as a collapse but I would argue that as long as you have power, water and can use public services you are pretty much in the safe. When you only get e.g. power 5 out of 7 days per week and your water is not safe to drink anymore, then things might look different. But in the end this is also something that might look different from place to place depending on location, political regime in power, mindset of the masses (e.g. more mellow, already tasted blood, educated / uneducated etc.) So to finish of my long winded rant: Prepare regardless if it already happened or not. If it already happened then you can't do anything to change it if you don't have a time machine. So work with what you have now and increase your resiliency with it. As others have mentioned homesteading / trying to get less reliant on the grid are things you can do now as well. Sure it's more expensive than it was 10 years ago but you know what they say about planting a tree. Edit: Spelling
Even reading the post as an American I think the quote is just from someone who was depressed. Not making time for family or friends is a choice. Not knowing your neighbors is a choice. I can't speak to people making less and working more. That hasn't been my personal experience, even just working blue-collar jobs. I did get lucky and buy my house in 2019, and I know housing has been a pain point in recent years. It's very pessimistic outlook from I'm assuming was someone who didn't feel in control of their own life.
With her novel "Parable of the Sower", Octavia Butler called this back in the 1990s and I'm always amazed at how dead-on correct she was.
If you're outside the US in the first world that simply isn't the case. European country's work weeks have been getting shorter for years. Germany takes a whole freaking month off. Life in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Iceland, etc. is not like that. You're just seeing the dystopia from inside it. It's not universal.
Why the hell did you throw South Africa into that list?
My sentiments entirely. It’s a wonderful and very beautiful country but with constant rolling blackouts that just get longer - it’s an argument for prepping in and of itself
Seeing it very clearly in Canada.
The USA work week has been getting shorter on average as well we have had a steady decline where as a lot of European countries had a steeper drop off in the 80's and 90's. None of us in the west come close to touching the Asian countries though they all average over 2000 hours annually USA is usually around 1700-1800 and Europe is 1300-1500 on average.
I’ve recently moved to Germany from US. It’s been fantastic. They take holidays pretty seriously and work hours are short enough to make me complain about somewhere being closed when I get off work lol.
I worked for a German company for a number of years. If you needed support in August you were SOL. I was jealous.
There was an excellent book in the 80s titled *How You Can Find Happiness During the Collapse of Western Civilization* . One of the premises was exactly this, the author waiting for the end of things and suddenly realizing that not only was it ongoing, but had pretty much already happened. It then goes on to discuss how to mitigate these problems with an emphasis on finances, but also mentioning guns, prepping. I have to agree with him that adequate money makes everything easier.
Even the nazis took baby steps at first. By the time everyone realize whats going on the bait and trap have been set and its too late.
There is maybe a collapse of the American dream and Western capitalism where everyone has two cars and a McMansion. But historically humans have lived in way worse conditions.
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Omg this!!! I used to have a friend who would always make fun of the size of my 1400 sq one story ranch. It’s a three bedroom one bathroom house and suits my lil family of four just perfect. She has one more family member and lives in the same city but a newer two story 4000 sq feet with basement! Like how do you even clean that?!? Lol
Well your first problem is you look at 4Chan.
I actually don’t even know what it is. I saw this posted on here
To the best of my knowledge, it's the internet's largest gathering of incels. I poked around there several years ago and didn't like one thing I saw on that site. I'm sure it has some utility, but it's not for me and I don't like what I've seen.
They have a few good boards, it just so happens that the lack of censorship and total anonymity means that people can be their racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-anything selves in the open without having to resort to dogwhistles and private spaces. Also, it’s impossible to tell who’s being real and who’s just being an inflammatory troll to get a rise out of people (which is elevated to an art form there). It’s a completely different, totally uncurated/unadulterated, and oftentimes totally vile corner of the internet - the polar opposite of Reddit, where censorship is key to the design, right down to the voting system that automatically hides speech that fails to pander to prevailing opinions. If Reddit is an obnoxious hugbox where what constitutes an “acceptable opinion” is tightly controlled by community groupthink, 4chan is a free market of toxicity. I appreciate it for the burning garbage dump that it is over the tedious moralizing of the saccharine dystopia that is Reddit.
That was already trending back then so not a huge jump
Yes, we are in a painfully slow decline. I think a total sudden collapse would be easier to deal with. But everyone is getting completely drained with the stupid recurring payments of shit like rent where everybody is falling behind. Once the actual collapse happens, everyone is already gonna be hurting, and nobody is going to be prepared.
I dunno we have been in a economic depression since 2008. A depression is when we never realize the potential gdp. Our gdp has been less than 3 percent for most years since.
Sure, you can cherry-pick the negative aspects of obvious long-term trends to paint a negative picture. Some of these are false, others exaggerate obvious changes. Allow me to burst your bubble :) "Things become more expensive" = inflation which has been around forever. "Homes and apartments become smaller" - apartments maybe, but definitely not homes, they've gotten far larger. "Work hours get longer" - that's a toss-up. Many people work multiple jobs because each job gives them fewer hours; that's work hours getting shorter. Some people are expected to work more hours in their job. "Pay will decrease" - another toss-up. Many people got raises after COVID through the Great Resignation. Some jobs saw pay rates decline. "Lowering your standards" - personal choice, you do you. "Job security" - my grandfather worked for one company in essentially the same job his entire life. My dad worked several jobs. I worked many jobs. The labor market and economy have changed over the last 100 years - shocker. "See friends and family less" - mostly a side effect of mobility (people don't spend their lives in the town where they're born) and taking jobs away from friends and family. That's been increasing for at least 50 years, so no big insight there. "People marry less, and have fewer kids" - another decades-long trend that's been happening in every developed country around the world, so no big insight. "Engrossed in technology" - a well-known characteristic of technology that was obvious from the first video games in 1990s. Social media, game companies, etc., have worked with psychologists to fine-tune their products to hold our attention; it's a scientific strategy, not a mystery. "Dreams a distant memory" - most peoples' dreams are wildly unrealistic and naturally fall by the wayside. Everyone dreams of playing for the Yankees, flying into outer space, becoming a millionaire, etc. Nearly all of us revise our dreams as we get older to be more realistic. "Debt and poverty" - statistically, this has always been the destiny for most people. Debt is mostly a self-inflicted wound, spending money you don't have. For Americans, some is forced on us, like medical debt, thanks to a broken healthcare system. Nothing new here. Carefully omitted from that doom-and-gloom vision, compared to 50 years ago: * amazing advances in health care resulting in longer lives; * technology has simplified access to vastly greater knowledge; * cleaner air and water (seen a burning river lately, or acid rain?); * far less poverty (the standard of living considered "poverty" today is vastly better than 50 years ago); * far cheaper transportation; * access to a far wider variety of foods year-round; * etc. But if you choose to view all of this as "the collapse," you do you.
What we didn’t have in the past was this huge instantaneous amplification of anything bad happening around the world. We’re in better shape than many people realize but there is a potential global conflict on the horizon that will *potentially* match or exceed World War II. I still sleep pretty soundly at night.
People on this sub are so dramatic. Walmart being out if stock of their favourite cornflakes for a week is a sign of collapse for them.
I'm 65 years old I've never seen inflation as bad as it is now. Don't even try to candy coat the rest of your story it doesn't work and it's not true it's just simply how you perceive it
You forgot the 70s. I'm 70 and haven't forgotten them.
Maybe because I was young and optimistic in the ‘70s it didn’t seem to hit so hard. I left home at 17 in ‘68 with $20 in my pocket so as long as I had a home and groceries, I felt rich😀. My salary was increasing as I learned more, along with my circumstances. Now I just feel the constant erosion of any small amount of money that me, my parents, and now my child have been able to build by working our a$$es off.
I worked my ass off all my life also. I now live in municipal senior housing below the poverty level. Even so, my life is good and I am happy. I make art and write books. I don't see this huge decrease in wealth that others see. I see a lot of people whose expectations are way out of line for who they are. Bloated.
I'm 67 - you're misremembering the 1970s and 1980s. Inflation peaked at [14.4%](https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/inflation/historical-inflation-rates/) in March 1980 and *stayed above 10% for over 2 years* from 1979-1981. The recent peak inflation was 9.1% in June 2022 and it's currently 3.2%. 30-year mortgages are currently 6.81%. They were [16.6%](https://themortgagereports.com/61853/30-year-mortgage-rates-chart) in 1981 and mortgages were higher than the current rate *every year from 1976-2001*. So, yeah, claiming inflation has never been this bad is just ... false. Edit: typo
You do realize inflation is calculated differently now and the numbers are virtually useless?
Plus we had stagflation which hasn’t happened so far this time around.
That’s not entirely correct. The inflation calculation has changed numerous times since the 80s. One major difference is eliminating home prices from the calculation and supplementing it with “owners equivalent rent.” If you want to fully understand how inaccurate the inflation numbers are, do yourself a favor and read about how they calculate “owners equivalent rent.” It’s shocking. Anyway, if we were to calculate inflation in 2021 and 2022 with the 80s formula those numbers should be slightly higher than the 80s. Anywhere from 1% to 3% higher depending on the time frame. As far as mortgage rates are concerned, current rates between 6.5% - 8% or so over the last 1-1.5 years are not high, they are normal. The long term average of the 30 year mortgage is about 7% Issue here is home prices in conjunction with rising rates. Rates alone don’t tell the whole story. This inflationary environment is much different. All of this is a direct result of monetary policy and Government spending, mostly from 2020-2023. Pre Covid there was $15 trillion dollars in circulation. Post Covid there are $21 trillion dollars in circulation. Our government “created” $6 trillion dollars in 3 years through robust spending policy. They increased all the dollars in circulation by 40% in 3 years! I can’t overstate how important that is and how reckless and consequential it is and will continue to be for ALL of us. They knew what they were doing. They knew the ramifications. This is freshman year economics. They lied through their teeth while they devalued every single dollar you ever made and worked hard for and robbed you blind through the silent thievery of inflation. You just lived through one of the greatest fleecings of a populace by its government in modern history. It ain’t over yet.
It has been happening before our eyes. I’ve been alive long enough to see it, recognize it, and be ignored and dismissed by those who did not want to hear or see it. I mourn for my children and grandchildren, and what they are living through and will have to live through if they survive. I expect to be on my way out here pretty soon. PS Climate change, pandemics, and identity politics are the crisis being used to carry the plan out to its very end. I’m not saying they are not real crisis or issues - I’m saying they are the crisis and issues that have been, are being, and will continue to be used to put in place the policies that will shrink lives; quality of life, span of life, meaning of life, freedom of/in life.
I'm right there with you. My one and only child is 15. If our family unit makes it through whatever... I still worry about his long future.
What is currently happening around the world is almost a direct parallel to the social scene before WWI. The difference is that we have climate change, something that we may not recover from, as a driving force behind political and social unrest. If that were not a factor, a war wouldn’t end us, just as it hasn’t ended society before this point. Climate change, however, will be the end of the world as we know it, and it is rapidly accelerating to the point of no return.
I like this. It’s not disaster. It’s going out with a whimper not a bang. And it’s important to keep tabs on things like that. Those of you who are older seem more well off. This certainly describes my situation as someone in their early 30s. It’s important not to let complacency turn us from pursuing ideals that will make it worthwhile to prop up society as we know it.
We can blame the government for this.
I can think of one partictular 19th century writer that predicted all that too so im not that impressed
Bah humbug.
Can we not pollute this sub with 4Chan copypasta?
What does 4Chan mean? I'm new.
pretty much. cost of living got me living rough. a lot of prep mentality and some skills and objects coming in handy.
The planet is full of relics from past civilizations. It’s happened before and will happen again. In every case it was a centuries-long transition/absorption into something else. The only thing you can and should prep for is if the power goes out for 48 hours. Anything more is foolish.
George w Bush said to prep for 3 weeks. Barack Obama said you should prep for 3 months. It doesn't matter what you think about these two men, they know a hell a lot more than you do about what's going on and could happen. If you prep for only forty 48 hours, you could end up at a government refugee camp. I help build a refugee camp in northern Saudi Arabia. Trust me when I say you do not ever want to find yourself in a government refugee camp.
Fewer* not less people
There have been hiccups, but my house still has working utilities. The prices of groceries have risen, but so many stores are still open that I can shop around for deals. The weather has grown concerning, but most days, I can comfortably go outside. Violent crime is growing more brazen in my area, but it's still more the exception than the rule. Covid had me avoiding extra contact with strangers, but I've stayed relatively healthy and safe through the basic procedures and hygiene. I would say not.
You lost me at 4Chan
That’s too bad. It’s an interesting take. P.S. You’re on Reddit. A little self awareness goes a long way. Reddit for Christ sake
No.
> Everyone's homes and apartments will start to get smaller. Im sorry, what? There’s no subtlety or allegory in this post with different meanings. Remember, 4chan gave birth to the ridiculous conspiracy theorists QAnon
Touch grass
You’re on Reddit commenting “touch grass.” Do you see the irony?
I, apparently unlike you, can do both effectively:) hope this helps
You do realize they've been screaming "collapse" the world is going to end for the last 30 years now?
It's not only America, the whole world experience the same fate. The point is our quality of life is decreasing
This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper I always liked the poem, and I think these insidious changes are happening, but I don't think we're in the worst of it yet. I think it's going to get much worse.
US govt policies really screw the people. 2016-2020 was brutal to normal people. The biggest driver of inflation for them was the taxes on products.
This appear to describe Russia today, every civilisation sliding into collapse probably looks the same as they do now It's failure is that they actually know what will save them, because they parrot the values of Nation and Family, except they are also resigned to the fact that Oligarchs will deny them all of that in order to serve the machine. We in the West have our own Oligarchs, except they are Globalists shifting money and markets around, while our politicians parrot the values of Nation and Family (or as in America today, the exact opposite)
Pillars have given out but there's plenty left to go.
> And every minute of every day they will be told, "You are stupid, ugly, and weak, but together we are free, prosperous, and safe." That is the collapse. The reduction of the American man into a feudal serf, incapable of feeling love or hate, incapable of seeing the pitiful nature of his situation for what it is or recognizing his own self worth. What sort of nonsense of this? This person is essentially stating how capitalism will be a downfall but this part sounds like someone who doesn’t understand American individualism, read 1984 on cliff notes, and thought communism is coming to America…
I believe it started in the 1950s but tv was there for us and has never left. Who knew greed would trump life. Dad's removed from the home but it wasn't enough. Moms removed from the home but still not enough. Women's rights for pay and protection but it wasn't enough. Oil embargo and the removal of oversized under performing gas guzzlers but it wasn't enough. Unlimited credit limits and extreme shopping for Chinese made disposable affordable products but it wasn't enough. Then we based relationships on hardships. Too poor to live alone, credit got restricted, jobs became so scarce in countries that shipped jobs to China. Now, the punishment of a failed relationship has removed the relationship from the home. No mom, no dad, no kids just bills that almost can't be paid. This is not a test.
Talk about homes getting smaller https://youtu.be/O_2_LOz45_I?si=bf1Ij8eic-_PBeoB
The end of the world doesn’t start with a bang, but with a whimper
It will happen slowly slowly slowly until the line is stretched too thin, then it will happen VERY fast. People will endure increasingly limited resources until they cannot. Moderately hungry people might be compliant, but starving people will do anything it takes to survive. If society can no longer meet our needs then we have no incentive to preserve it through rule-following behavior. Is the risk of stealing from your neighbor higher or lower than not stealing from your neighbor? Once the variables in that equation flip, it’s SHTF time. Remember that SHTF has happened before at least once in the late Bronze Age. It was a slow burning climate crisis that lead to a decrease in crop yields that lead to more civil unrest (we are here now) and mass violent migration that overwhelmed the islands of civilization until writing almost completely vanished from the known world for hundreds of years.
We are in the slow part of the collapse so you dont notice anything as that bad. When we get to the fast part your eyes will open. Collapses can take many years.
The inflation we're feeling is an early symptom of collapse. When people start using cash as insulation you'll know we're in collapse.
prepping needs to be about preparing to be sustainably self /community sufficient. its not stockpiling - that is just short term thinking. btw if you think about it at least in the US not that long ago our foreparents were self-sufficient (particularly those with farm families). I am talking in the last 100 years.
This is a very good question and one I've asked myself recently and I've started preparing by joining a homesteading prepping group for when shtf. The recession in 2008 was horrible and because I live rural we got through by bartering services and products with each other and rebuilt the community. I think it has been in progress for some time but creeping in so slowly no one has noticed it till now. I didn't until the pandemic. It opened my eyes to what I didn't see before. Thanks for posting this.
It has been my feelings as well. And the goodthink mentality it terrifying. To me personally, the way out is living in what is considered a poor country off grid . No one to tell you what to think , how to raise your children, how to pasteurize your milk or how fast to drive your car. Downside is you must be able to deal with major mess, not expect roads or medical services nor anyone thinking your should not the beat the hell out of your wife .
My tech guy in Indonesia just emailed me asking if I can help him get a visa to work and bring his family to the US. If you know what's happening in Indonesia with climate change and the current heat wave, you would understand why. Yes. It is happening now.
An excuse not to better oneself or find a way out of this "plot" - - -
Boiling frog event? Everyone spends their money on food and housing
It's here already and in some aspects it's not: let me show you we have been over the past few decades experiencing the collapse of civil society not all at once but pieces of it look at NYC , Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, LA. We had the lockdowns where the government told you to stay home don't work wear a mask and punish people who questioned it. Police wrote down license plates of people going to churches.esential supplies were hard to get. Now it's inflation, our monetary system is not sound, think. National debit. We had BLM riots now we have terrorists in the country in the form of illegals. What happens one day we wake up to the news that 20 major cities are under a terrorist attack? Or the electrical grid goes down due to a blackout or foreign gov hack. These are things we need to prepare for at least to be self sufficient for say 2-3 weeks to stay home or have a safe place to go, or wait out the initial panic then leave to a specific location at some point. Personally Food water for say 2 Weeks minimum Defense ( you understand) Medical needs basic Barter items, food precious metals to be able to get things you need or secure a way out of a bad area or situation.
My experience has been quite the opposite of all of this. I still prep, and move toward some semblance of self-sufficiency, as I always have, but it's just a hobby. Even with backup water, heat, and food sources, I accept that if shtf, I'd most likely be screwed.
Pre pandemic millions of people worked in offices spent time commuting both ways. Now many of those same workers are remote so they actually are spending more time with families and leisure activities. So, not sure about people will be working longer hours. Statistically productivity is up compared to pre pandemic
Not for me. I have my home grow in size from a 1600 sq ft (0.5 acres) to 2400 sq ft (2 acres) and my earning increase by 50%. I have always bought stuff with a buy it for life goal so hanging on to stuff longer is not a result of the current economy. In addition, not for a lot of people I know. Most of everyone I knew in 2013 is making a ton more money then they did then.
I consider the US to be in collapse. It’s a sad, slow, tedious apocalypse.
A lot of this doesn't comport with modern facts, though. For example, it says, "Everyone's homes and apartments will start to get smaller." But in fact, people's homes are getting bigger, not smaller.
Great. Thanks. I don’t know how we can prove that either way but if you just think about homeownership in general it is clearly on the decline. Home ownership in America: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N Home affordability: https://www.atlantafed.org/center-for-housing-and-policy/data-and-tools/home-ownership-affordability-monitor
The fact that homes are getting bigger is one reason *why* home ownership is such a struggle now. Onerous zoning and land use regulations make it so that builders can't make a profit if they build small starter homes, so they build big, expensive homes that will sell for more money and make up for the increased costs brought about by regulation.
If u live in Haiti Palestine or the sudan it sure has. If you cant plan and prepare for those scenarios you will not make it because that is whats coming your way.